(Re)Learning how to see: responsive drawing as a means of engagement
To encounter a landscape through drawing or painting is to be in presence with that landscape. Responsive drawing as a daily practice is a means of inhabiting the present moment more fully which can lead us back to seeing, noticing, and ultimately to caring.
My own art practice considers contemporary landscape from a philosophical, literary, and visual perspective as well as its relationship to physical and psychological ways of being in a place.
When teaching “landscape” as a subject and a concept being present in the space/place is critical. Walking and sitting in stillness cultivate a state of being conducive to a responsive drawing practice not concerned with outcome but with responding to sensorial stimuli such as color, temperature, light, etc. This method changes our relation to time. It helps us inhabit the present moment and become more attuned to and in tune with the natural world. My experience teaching this practice to students is that it is an act of resistance in a world where virtual spaces and technology create very different and accelerated relationships to time and alter our ability to pay attention and apprehend the world around us. I have taught this methodology to students on semester abroad programs as a means of processing their experiences of place. I am interested in further developing courses which consider drawing as a collaborative endeavor with the land and dive deeply into the practices described.